The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-09-18

Its Punishments' is circumstantial and lurid
account of a young who murders rich old
woman in cold blood, takes her money, and goes
into life of low lechery with a professional
harlot That is the second of them. Ivan
Il.yitch' is a detailed and most disgustingly
realistic catalogue of all the aches, pains.
gripes, contortions, anguish, remorse. and ter
ror of man who has been very wicked. and
who is slowly dying of an intestinal disease,
VINO does die, in fact, and whose every dose of
medicine is described, whose sick room is photo
graphed, whose groanS all catalogued and
whose death-rattle is considered the piece de
resistance of the winding up of the narrowing
and disgusting scene. That is the third one.
Now what is TO be said of the criticism that
puts such stuff up the cream of fiction.
THAT Tostoi and Dostoievsky have a certain
power of no ordinary sort is true; but their fc-
ton, nevertheless, is dirty, unwholesome and at
times absolutely obscene in the boldness of its
dealings with forbidden subjects.
Il should regret to see American fiction forced
into the Russian and French channels. / regret
to our book-stalls loaded with filthy foreign
books to the exclusion of clean American books.
/ regret to see American boys and girls taught
to read Anna Karenina' and Crime and Its
Punishment in preference to American books
of a wholesome and patriotic kind. detest
the American criticism which prefers the hypo-
ehonorlacal confessions of worn-out Russian
debauchee to the clean, hopeful healthful,
sound-ibered writings of our American authors
t'Yes, the editor Of the Literary World did bor
row of Messrs. Harper & Bros a portrait of
Tolstoi with which to illustrate the vicious at
tack he made upon me, but if the picture is to
be construed at all l submit that its argument
is IN my favor, for the countenance Is that OF
we'll look for yourself.
''Yes, stand squarey opposed to whatever /
think will debase American literature or hinder
its highest and most healthfu development, and
In favor of encouraging American writers to
work along those lines which will lead toward
modng public sentiment to that form most
suited to the health, the morals aud the happy
freedom of clean, virtuous and Christian peo-
pie.
"Fction-writing is profession De culiarly
irzl Ia
women succeeding well in America. 1t will be
a bad day for our country if our women writers
of the future choose TO affect the method of
teaching morals by picturing immortality in
their writings The whole theory is plea for
license. Under the cover of presense of real
Istc truth to life novels may be made engines
of debauchery and under the guise of pointing
a moral every shade of pruriencY may BIS laid
In the pages of a romance
SIN France and Russia this has already been
done. i am not in favor of seeing it done in
America; but it will be done here just as soon as
the fiber of our peoples morals has been suffici-
emily re-arranged by the subtle and insidious in
fuence of foreign teachings, supported by the
authority of American criticism. hope the in
tuence will fail. l hope that the press and the
people of America will soon that the impor-
tation of insldous foreign books is just as bad
as the importation of Socialistic Anarchists We
do not need vile Russian novels any more than
we need the vile Anarchists that those books
have infamed and debauched The whole truth,
in q nutshell is that Tourgueneif and all the
rest of the foreign writer's, who were in fact
traitors to their own country, and were sowing
treason and sedirion there, have been
importing Socialism, in one form or
another. and anarchy in its
dangerous form into America by means of their
writings. L have objection to their reform
ing their own country. but have no patience
with the criticism which woul set up any con-
fessedly burnt out Russian libertine and
debauchce as reformer in country. We
Americans quite able to take care of our
selves and of all good foreigners who to
our shores. We have open arms for foreigners
who come citizens and patriotic subjects,
but we have for foreigners who come
here either in person or by their books to be set
uD reformers of Institutions and
laws. We want neither them their insidi-
Gus literature.